Author: nlysiak

IMMB 2014 Student Post

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IMMB student Alex Kirby wrote a nice post about her time at Shoals this summer.  Alex is working as a Communications Intern at The Ocean Foundation.  Best of luck to her in her work in communications and science education.

“Shoals Marine Laboratory provided me with the extraordinary opportunity to study the ocean and the remarkable marine animals that call it home. Living on Appledore for two weeks opened my eyes to a new way of living, fueled by a passion to better the ocean and the environment. While on Appledore, I was able to experience authentic research and real field experience. I learned a great amount of detail about marine mammals and the Isles of Shoals and I glimpsed into a marine world, but I also kept thinking back to my communication roots. Shoals has now provided me with high hopes that communication and social media are powerful tools that can to be utilized to reach the general public and improve the public’s superficial understanding of the ocean and its problems.”

MIDWAY – Message From The Gyre

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Marine plastic debris is a problem of overwhelming concern, from how the massive quantities of material that have accumulated in mid-ocean gyres (areas of ocean circulation that retain particles in slow moving whirls) to the effects of plastic debris on marine animals that accidentally ingest it.  MIDWAY – Message From The Gyre is a documentary that focuses on the albatross, which uses Midway Atoll for nesting.  Albatross chicks are unwittingly fed plastic by their parents, who are foraging in the Pacific Garbage Patch – a floating mass of plastics and other trash in the tropical Pacific Ocean.  The chicks starve to death, despite their stomachs being full [of plastic trash].

laysan_albatross

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Message Bottled in an Email

| nlysiak

Amid the dunes of a tiny island in the North Atlantic, a scientist found a sandblasted bottle with a note in it.

WHOI archivist Dave Sherman tracked down the bottle that Joyce found on Sable Island: No. 21588. It was one of 12 released from the research vessel Albatross III on April 26, 1956, at 8:30 p.m. at 42°18’6″N, 65°30’6″W, not far off Nova Scotia. Three bottles from this batch were recovered later the same year—two in Nova Scotia and one in Eastham on Cape Cod.  Given its sandblasted appearance, perhaps No. 21588 came ashore on Sable Island also in 1956, some 300 miles away from its release point, and remained buried and buffeted by dunes until now.

Text via Oceanus Magazine

The Charles W. Morgan

| nlysiak

My tour included visits to the main deck, Captain’s quarters, blubber room (pictured, where barrels of whale oil would have been stored), and the iron tryworks (where oil was rendered from blubber).  It’s hard to imagine being at sea on a ship like this for years at a time.  Short people definitely had an advantage.  The final photo is a shot from the top of the Bunker Hill Monument, where you can see the Morgan and USS Constitution moored at the Charlestown Navy Yard.